Area code 473 is the local

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

area code of Grenada,

Carriacou Carriacou is an island of the Grenadine Islands. It is a dependency of Grenada, and is located in the south-eastern Caribbean Sea, northeast of the island Grenada and the north coast of South America. The name is derived from the Carib lang ...

and

Petite Martinique Petite Martinique is one of the islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique, which is a dependency of Grenada. It is 4 km (2½ miles) away from Carriacou. With its and population of 900, it is smaller than Carriacou. Petite Martinique compr ...

. The 473 area code, which spells GRE, was created during a split from the original

809 __NOTOC__ Year 809 (Roman numerals, DCCCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Spring – Siege of Serdica (809), Siege of Serdica: ...

area code which began permissive dialing on 31 October 1997 and ended 31 October 1998. For calls placed within Grenada,

, only the seven-digit local number is dialed. Calls to Grenada from anywhere in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

are dialed 1 + 473 + seven-digit

phone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...

Use in telephone fraud

The 473 area code has been linked to a form of

telephone fraud Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers. Many operators hav ...

known as the "one ring scam". The person perpetrating the scam calls the victim via a robodialer or similar means, sometimes at odd hours of the night, then hangs up when the phone is answered with the hope that the victim will be curious enough to call the number back. When the victim does this, an automatic $19.95 international call fee is charged to their account, as well as $9.00/min thereafter. Similar scams have been linked to Antigua (

area code 268 Area code 268 is the telephone area code of Antigua and Barbuda. The 268 area code, or "(ANT)" was created during a split from the original 809 area code which began permissive dialing 1 April 1996 and ended 31 March 1997. The 268 area code is p ...

), Jamaica ( area codes 876 and 658), the Dominican Republic ( area code 809) and the British Virgin Islands ( area code 284).

References

External links

North American Numbering Plan Administrator

473 Communications in Grenada {{Grenada-stub

Use in telephone fraud

See also

References

External links